Is Toyota Untouchable?! Who are the contenders?

Alright y’all before we jump into this article let’s chat for a second. I’ve heard your feedback and I’m continuing to make adjustments in my writing to best fit what you’re looking for. Many of you have suggested that I split up my once-weekly NASCAR article into smaller, more manageable articles that I can use to dive a little deeper – so that’s exactly what I’m going to do, starting now. This article will be a recap of the Phoenix race, and I’ll release a preview of Bristol this weekend. It may take a couple weeks for Streetcars 101 Magazine and I to settle into a new release schedule, but we’ll get it done. My goal is to have a Race Review out every Tuesday, and a Race Preview out every Friday. With all of that said, I want to thank you, my audience, for your continued support and feedback. If you have additional ideas or suggestions, feel free to comment on this article down below!

I’ll be adding a couple sections to these race review articles as there have been topics I wanted to mention in past articles and just didn’t have room to fit. While these topics will take up a bit more space, I’ll be mindful to keep these articles from getting too lengthy. Additionally, I’ve designed new graphics for these articles to help track the performance of my manufacturer Team picks and Drivers picks, as well as how many wins each manufacturer has scored so far. I may still continue to rearrange these articles as time goes by, so keep that feedback coming! Keep in mind, this particular article will be longer than what I’m shooting for as I’ve taken a bit of space to explain the changes in my formatting. Without further ado, take a look at my new graphics and then we’ll jump straight into my race notes!

First off, the beginning, middle, and end of the race were all Toyota! This is the strongest show of force we’ve seen from a manufacturer in years as Toyota made a strong statement about their position in NASCAR. Denny Hamlin took the pole in his Toyota, and the Toyota of Ty Gibbs was hot on his heels to start in 2nd for an all Toyota front row. The stages were set at 60, 125, and 127 with a fuel window of 95 laps. This week’s pace car was the Camaro ZL1. I’ll be interested to see if we get a Ford pace car at some point this season; so far it’s only been the Camaro and the Camry. While this track is technically an intermediate track, at exactly 1 mile long it falls under NASCAR’s qualifications for the new Short Track Package – an aerodynamic package designed to make the cars more maneuverable. While I saw quite a few people talking about this package, I’m actually not going to explain the whole thing. Click above to see NASCAR’s explanation of it.

You couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day for a race. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as 36 cars went under green to a sold out crowd. The mountain ranges just outside of town were visible from the in-car cameras on track. Being a shorter track, a single lap takes place in just 29 seconds and the cars max out at 129 mph. On lap 6 the first caution came out due to Derek Kraus spinning without being contacted. Unfortunately he collected Austin Dillon and Austin Cindric in this incident. As I noted last week, the Toyotas have superior handling capabilities, which puts them at an advantage on short tracks and intermediate tracks. I expect they’ll do well at the road courses as well. The race restart was led by 4 Toyotas, and the stage ended with 2 Toyotas at the front of the pack. While I’ve heard many people say this was a boring race, it wasn’t for me! With one of my driver picks this year being Reddick, I stayed thoroughly entertained for the entire race. The final 12 laps of Stage 1 were exciting as Tyler Reddick battled Ty Gibbs for the lead. With three laps to go, Reddick finally passed Ty Gibbs to take the stage win.

Adding to the excitement, we got up to five-wide on the restart with cars all over the apron trying to find their groove and a way to pass the traffic in front of them. Most of the cars took green flag pitstops between laps 116 and 121, but Todd Gilliland and a few others stayed out to gain position. Hamlin had the first pit box and came out of the pits in front of Reddick. After eight laps of battling, Reddick finally overtook Hamlin and then retook the lead from Gilliland on lap 136. While I didn’t pick Gilliland as one of my drivers this year, I’ll note that he’s doing fairly well this season. I’ll be keeping an eye on him as the season progresses. 

Although Reddick had gained a sizable lead by lap 170, he lost a significant amount of time in battling Joey Logano, who was trying not to go a lap down. By lap 175 Reddick had passed Lagano, but by that time Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin had caught up. With three laps to go, Bell overtook for first and won Stage 2. By this point in the race, Toyota had led all but 14 laps, and had won both stages. After the Stage 3 start, we hit a rough patch of a series of cautions. The first caution was for Kyle Busch spinning out. Then we went green and three laps later Nemechek got into Lagano triggering an accident that involved Kraus, Lajoie, Berry, and Zane Smith. The race went green again, and just two laps later another caution came out as Denny Hamlin spun, trying to pass Reddick for the lead. 

Although quite a few cars opted to pit under this caution, many stayed out, counting on another caution. Race leader Reddick decided to pit and restarted 16th. Unfortunately, the 45 team had spent the majority of the day optimizing the car to run in clean air, so it was difficult for Tyler to move up the pack like he had earlier in the race. Bell’s team however had been optimizing their Toyota to run in dirty air all day, which meant he was able to easily move up the pack even though he restarted in 20th. Although there were 10 different lead changes in this final stint of the race, Bell moved his Toyota up to the front and gained his 7th career win with a considerable lead. Toyotas started the race, won both stages, and claimed first at the end of the day. My congratulations to Bell, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Toyota for their momentous day.

While my articles usually end following the conclusion of my race notes, I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I wanted to add a section. I thoroughly enjoy the race liveries that each car sports every week, so I’m going to pick my favorites each week and mention them. I’ll just be highlighting a top 3 each week. This week, the number 9 looked fantastic on track – the light blue really stood out in the pack. The 48 stood out with the design looking like a multicolored camouflage from a distance. Last but not least, call me biased but I think the lines and colors on the 45 were really clean, and worked well together. 

I release weekly articles of all types of vehicles! I’m also releasing 2 weekly articles covering this year’s NASCAR season. Make sure to visit my profile to catch the articles you’ve missed! To see my latest photography work, go to StingerAuto.com or look up @Stinger_Auto on Instagram and Stinger Photography on Facebook!